Standardizing “Best Practices”

by Dean Prigelmeier, President of Proactive Technologies, Inc.

When it comes to the term “best practices” for process-driven tasks, there seems a wide range of understanding of the concept; some better than others. According to Wikipedia, “A best practice is a method or technique that has consistently shown results superior to those achieved with other means, and that is used as a benchmark. In addition, a “best” practice can evolve to become better as improvements are discovered…Best practices are used to maintain quality as an alternative to mandatory legislated standards and can be based on self-assessment or benchmarking.^[1] Best practice is a feature of accredited management standards such as ISO 9000 and ISO 14001^{[2] –} the framework for industry quality programs such as AS9000 and IATF16949. ISO 30414 broadened its focus on best practices with its “Human Resource Management – Guidelines for Internal and External Human Capital Reporting” in an effort to secure an organization’s sustainability with regard to worker technical expertise through establishing documented best practices.

This credible definition of the concept is representative of a consensus opinion that I have seen in the field at organizations who strive for high quality performance. However, how many individual interests derive their best practices, or what they display as their best practices, seems often to operate at the edge of the definition yet close enough to claim that best practices have been achieved. In truth, proclaiming a process as a best practice may be soothing to the locals, it may not have the same credibility with clients, potential clients or auditing agencies.

There are few steps that can help any organization achieve a best practice, which is related to the quality assurance notion of “repeatability.” Each systematic step is important to ensure credibility of use of the title. In addition, this approach helps to minimize the tendency to over-analyze a procedure and dwell on the least important aspects for benchmarks and metrics.

1. Define the Task or Procedure – In order to analyze a task/procedure, it must be targeted at the task level, which means: “A unit of work that has a beginning point, ending point and a series of steps in between, and when the steps are performed correctly and in the right order a desired outcome is achieved.” Without clarity of the target task, the process of defining each step of the task as a best practice component may be difficult and/or the sequence can become convoluted.

2. Determine Best Practice(s) – If the desired outcome is accurately known, it is easier to define the steps, or “inputs,” that lead to that outcome. One way to document each step is to observe a “subject matter expert,” whose outputs for this task are of high, consistent quality to perform the task. If the task is a prototype or soon to be released by engineering, working with the engineer can help in the design of the draft process. This is followed by a series of observations of a typical worker asked to follow the draft procedure and perform the process, watching for attainment of the outcome and fine-tuning it to gain repeatability of the process.

3. Document Best Practices – Once the process is stabilized, it needs to be formalized into materials that will be used as “performance aids,” such as a Draft Technical Process Sheet,” Draft On-the-Job Training Plan, Draft Training and Qualification/Certification Checklists.

4. Achieve Consensus – Circulating these performance aids to the stakeholders, including the originating engineer, the quality control department, the human resources and, most importantly, the end users for review and comment is an important step to achieving validity, credibility and organizational buy-in.

5. Implement Best Practices, Document – Once finalized, ensure the availability of the best practice performance aids to those who have input into the outcome. If there are any inputs that did not participate in step 4, provide a briefing to ensure they understand the documents, the process and the importance of complying with the established standard.

6. Monitor Performance – Establish metrics for each outcome of the process that are reasonable, realistic and appropriate. This might take the form of quality yield goals, zero defect requirements, or an acceptable level of “tolerance” that ensures an overall quality goal is met. If the outcome goal is not met, determine if everyone is complying with the standardized best practice. If compliance is determined, the other process variables can be investigated such as materials, environmental factors, machinery, and software. Use troubleshooting techniques to isolate variables to eliminate them as suspects.

7. Continuously Improve – Make it routine to ask the end users, who have repeated the standardized best practice and have the most direct experience with the process itself and the performance aids developed to support standardization, for concerns that they have registered and suggestions for improvement. They are the best, and most overlooked, source of anecdotal and empirical data. But follow-up with their input by investigating its significance, incorporating any resulting improvements in the performance aids and briefing the end users. Feedback loops are critical to the success of any system.

Once your version of steps 1 – 7 above are integrated into your organizational culture, this should become second-nature and support a greater awareness of standardized quality best practices. Demonstrating a logical, systematic approach to the development of best practice processes helps your subject matter experts address other or emerging processes for standardization.

Once individual task best practices have been standardized, overall policies and standards can be developed to further institutional the standardization at the job area or department level. Find more information on assistance in developing and documenting standardized best practices, as well as implementing and measuring task-based performance.

Proactive Technologies’ helps employers build and implement a structured on-the-job training system approach – based on defining and documenting “best practices” for all critical tasks – to expedite each worker’s accelerated path toward full job mastery. To see how it might work at your firm, your family of facilities or your region. Contact a Proactive Technologies representative today to schedule a GoToMeeting videoconference briefing to your computer. This can be followed up with an onsite presentation for you and your colleagues. A 13-minute promo briefing is available at the Proactive Technologies website and provides an overview to get you started and to help you explain it to your staff. As always, onsite presentations are available as well.